Sterling Park at Ocean Hill

Our planning strategy for this project is to use the three sites to bridge the gap between a low-rise walk up residential neighborhood of row houses, a mid-rise transitioning neighborhood that requires higher density and more diverse mix of uses than what would otherwise be familiar in order to provide the housing, and services the local community needs. We understand that critical mass of housing is no longer enough to warrant construction of a project - we need to provide shopping, education, community uses and, most importantly, jobs and job training to supplement the housing. It is these uses that underpin a successful residential development and provide stability and comfort for the neighborhood. Our sites will be diverse in population and use. We are proposing a mix of senior, public and traditional low income housing, supplemented by the public uses outlined below. We anticipate a vibrant new community of 473 apartments. We are incorporating in the project a Police Athletic League (PAL) complete with sports facilities, a job training and farming education center, a commercial day care, a supermarket with full assortment of produce, and a commercial gym (BLINK Fitness), to give our tenants an option of joining a health club for a reasonable monthly price. We have designed a rhythmically complex project built to express the mid & low rise culture of the neighborhood, while satisfying the high density needed to meet housing demand. The long street walls of these three sites have given us a challenge that we answered by designing facades with contemporary materiality, mixed with more traditional proportions to provide visual interest and maintain the pedestrian scale. At North and South we are establishing a street wall that is 4 stories tall and use the setback floors as a backdrop. This meant using more glass at the setbacks and more solid materials at the base. The attempt is to give a nod to the 3 and 4 story brownstones and brick row houses in the neighborhood, while providing the density needed to meet the housing demand.